Latest Russian rocket attack was on the Ukrainian city of Sloviansk ….
Bakhmut in the Donetsk region is STILL the place where fighting ranges….
Polnad will stop importing some of the Ukraine’s grains and other food products ….
The Polish agricultural sector, feel’s the Ukraine is destroying their business…
China is talking to Putin, but is holding off on openly sending it arms/weapons…..
A Russian who though he could challange Putin politically is wasting away in jail…..
Some in the Ukraine are alright with the ‘leaks’ which have showed their country’s challenges….
Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.
- Russian forces launched at least eight S-300 rockets at Sloviansk, according to the Ukrainian city’s mayor, Vadym Liakh. The State Emergency Service said in a statement that “75 tons of rubble have been dismantled at the site” of the strikes.
- Russia has still not granted U.S. consular officials access to Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich since he was detained last month, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Saturday — a situation that Blinken emphasized needed to be rectified immediately. “We continue to call for his immediate release,” Blinken told reporters during a news conference in Hanoi. “We need to see consular access now.”
- Jack Teixeira, the suspect in the leaks, faces up to 15 years in prison after the federal government charged him with retention and transmission of national defense information and willful retention of classified documents. The 21-year-old did not enter a plea and is detained pending a hearing Wednesday. The government is seeking continued detention, The Washington Post reported.
- The “fiercest battles” were taking place around Bakhmut, Ukraine’s armed forces said early Saturday. The military update said Russian forces were focusing their offensive operations on the city in the eastern Donetsk region, which has been gripped by fighting for months.
- Zelensky spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday about Macron’s recent trip to China to meet President Xi Jinping, Zelensky said in a tweet. “The conversation lasted for almost an hour and a half,” Zelensky elaborated during his nightly address Saturday. “We also discussed international contacts – both ours and France’s. Emmanuel informed me about the details and results of his visit to China. And I am thankful for the clear support of those principles that unite our entire anti-war coalition.”
- Poland will ban imported grains and other food products from Ukraine to protect their agricultural sector, according to Reuters. Jaroslaw Kaczyński, the leader of the ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS), said during a news conference on Saturday that Poland continues to be an ally of Ukraine and that the decision was merely a financial one.
- Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva urged the U.S. to “stop encouraging” the war in Ukraine. “The United States needs to stop encouraging war and start talking about peace,” Lula told reporters in Beijing.
- China does not intend to sell weapons to parties involved in the Ukraine conflict, Foreign Minister Qin Gang said at a Friday news conference with his German counterpart. A leaked U.S. intercept showed that Russian intelligence claimed Beijing had agreed to send Moscow weapons, The Post reported earlier. U.S. officials, who have warned China against providing Russia with weapons, say they have not seen evidence Beijing has made a transfer.
Navalny, jailed Russian opposition figure, is severely ill, aides say: Russian authorities could be slowly poisoning Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in prison, his lawyers and associates say, after the dissident suffered acute stomach pains and seizures while also losing more than 17 pounds recently, Robyn Dixon reports….
Remember ALL the companies that the media reported left Russia against the conflict with the Ukraine?
Well?
Many others announced they would pause or scale back operations but continue to trade. Others said they would sell their Russian assets but still are seeking buyers or trying to reduce the cost of leaving.
News of the departures last year briefly threatened the Kremlin’s efforts to muffle the impact of the war on Russians. But the continuing presence of so many companies has undermined the Washington-led effort to crush Russia’s economy, contributing taxes that help keep Russia’s war machine running and allowing Russians to maintain their prewar comforts and quality of life, even as Russian missiles destroy Ukrainian lives…..
…
The Kyiv School of Economics (KSE), which follows 3,141 foreign companies through its Leave Russia project, reports that only 211 companies have exited — fewer than 7 percent — while 468 have announced plans to leave.
But 1,228 are staying, and more than 1,200, despite pausing or scaling back, are still doing business or keeping their options open, according to the project director, Andrii Onopriienko….